Veritas2

Well I enjoyed the joke Ikepot, it made me laugh out loud. Pity I cannot think of one at the moment. I have however been thinking of my time at DLS recently and I realise I didn't like Sheffield. I have three reasons and I hope someone will make comments, particularly about my third reason. I came from a flat area the other side of Doncaster and did not like the hills in Sheffield. These probably seemed enormous to an 11 year old who wasn't used to them. The second reason was the journey to school through Brightside. I hated the smell of the place. The third reason was the taste of the water at school. It not only tasted awful it had a yellow hue. I never discussed this with anyone at the time but I am curious to know if anyone else had a problem with it. Perhaps it was just a different taste to the water I was used to drinking at home or there really was a problem.

I attended DLS from 1956 to 1961 and still have many memories of the school. Wilfred was the headmaster when I started but I think he was moved on after about four years and another Brother became head. MacSweeny was our English teacher. I don't remember learning much in English. He seemed to come in and chat to us for 35 minutes about any subject we chose to raise and that lasted to the end of the lesson. Bro. Alphonsus taught RE and his lessons were always interesting. We had a science teacher called Mr. Whaley who used to come to school on his scooter. One morning, probably in 1957, I arrived at school and saw Wilf crying as he went into his office. We later learnt that Mr Whaley had been killed in a RTA on the way to school that morning. Our year was chosen to sing at his requiem the following week. I recall Mr. Whaley as a good man. I wasn't keen on our Physics teacher Mr. Wilson. Perhaps one of the reasons was that he put me into detention three times in a week which meant I had to go to school on Saturday morning and that was a forty mile round trip for me. Mr Gent taught chemistry, I think he was an old boy of the school. Mr. Foley taught maths. One day he came into class sat down at the front and said 'number 1'. A few minutes later he said 'number 2'. This went on until the end of the lesson and he continued to sit there. One of the boys went out and brought Capt. Wall the PE master into the class who cleared us all out. It turned out Mr. Foley was diabetic and must have failed to take his medication that day. Brother Syrenus taught history. He was a snuff taker. He did make the subject interesting and made sure his pupils knew all the facts. I bet most of us passed our GCE's in that subject. JOS taught geography, the less said about that the better. We had a pupil in the class called Jimmy Ryan. Wilf came in to give him the stick for some reason I cannot recall but after a couple of strokes Jimmy said 'I'll 'ave n'more o' that'. MacSweeny never let Jimmy forget the incident and some time later Jimmy left the school. There was a Brother with ginger hair whose name escapes me at the moment, Cyril I think. He used to prowl the playground every day. He never taught me but I think his subject was geography. He caught me smoking and gave me the choice of being reported to Wilf or taking punishment from him. I chose the latter. He kept me waiting for weeks or maybe months. In the end I went and asked him if we could get it over with. Six of the best. That was painful. I was a poor student and I blame that on a bad home life, too much travelling to school and a bad attitude on my part.